New England School of Law OUTLaws

News and information of interest for the New England School of Law OUTLaws, and other members and supporters of the GLBT law school community at large.

Friday, July 22, 2005

Birth Certificate Strike Out

Governor Romney, who has not been shy about his disdain for marriage equality or same sex parents, is angering town and city clerks again by advising hospitals to manually alter birth certificates issued to lesbian couples when one of them has given birth. The clerks have been receiving birth certificates from hospitals with the word "Father" crossed off, whited-out or highlighted with an asterisk, and replaced with the phrase "Second Parent."

You may be thinking, "Hey, what's wrong with that?" Marriage licenses have been changed now to say Party A and Party B, isn't this just an extension of equality?

The problem is that the official marriage license forms were changed at the printer. Nothing is struck out or altered. This change was done after Goodridge, with no specific legislation ordering that it be done. Romney now claims that he cannot order a change in the official birth certificate form without specific legislation ordering that it be done. This is a similar argument to the one he made in support of his pulling out the 1913 law barring couples from marrying in Massachusetts if their marriage would not be recognized in their home state.

With the birth certificates having been altered from their issued format, their legitimacy can be called into question by anyone to whom the recorded certificate is presented as identification or proof of parentage. By telling hospitals to alter the official birth certificate forms, the governor has both undermined the legal standing of legally recognized same sex parents and strengthened his own standing should anyone question his conservative values in any expected future presidential campaign. This is the same man who not so long ago vehemently called for John Kerry to resign his US Senate position because he was campaigning in a presidential race. He stated that Sen. Kerry could not adequately fulfill his obligations to his Massachusetts constituents while simultaneously courting a national audience.

Perhaps the governor should heed his own words instead of causing harm to the states' citizens in an effort to build his own political reputation.

Thursday, July 21, 2005

OUTLaws TWEN Board

NESL OUTLaws now has our own TWEN board! You have to be a registered Westlaw user, with New England School of Law. Just go to TWEN, select Drop/Add Courses, and select the OUTLaws course. We'll still be maintaining our Yahoo! board, which is open to the general public, but the TWEN board will provide us lots of new tools to use for organizing OUTLaws over the course of the year. I've added a link to the TWEN site in the links section on the right-hand sidebar.

Marriage in Canada

Marriage became an official option for same sex couples in Canada yesterday, when the bill that the legislature passed on Tuesday was signed into law. The new law applies across Canada. Prior to this, marriage equality was legal only in certain provinces. The legislation clearly excempts religious officials from performing marriages which their religion does not recognize.

Canada does not require that either party to a marriage be a Canadian citizen, but be aware that if you travel up north for your marriage, it might not be recognized when you return home.

Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands and Massachusetts also have marriage equality. I'm proud to say that I've now been legally married (so long as I remain within the borders of my state) for almost three weeks now, and my wife and I couldn't be happier.

NESL Outlaws is a weblog written and managed by students at New England School of Law in Boston. The views expressed here reflect the views of the authors alone, and do not necessarily reflect the views or official positions of New England School of Law or its affiliates.

Links

Blogs of Interest

The following is a randomly sorted listing of other blogs that might be of interest. Some are law-specific, some are gay-specific, some are not specific but have related posts. They come from all parts of the spectrum, so if you don't like one, keep looking!